Oh ok.... I was pretty sure she was a black sex link and had no white markings on her head or anywhere else at hatch.... Do you think this could just be a variation on some red breakthrough on a black sex link pullet?
I'm so bummed out I'm online buying sexed day old chicks right now.... This hatch was supposed to be my primary layers next season
While Keesmom is right about it being generally a male pattern, here, the feathers in question are not of male structure; they're rounded and solid color, with normal sheen.
A male with feathers that color on his wings, with the feathers being of the type that males grow after puberty, would have much darker, shinier red feathers there, since the structure of the feathers is different in maturing males than it is in either hens or pre-pubertal males.
Instead of a solid 'U' shaped feather edge, filled with the same color, you would see a dark, solid, shinier 'V' within the 'U', with the remaining edges of the 'U' made up of loose, shiny fringe rather than joined feather webbing. If that makes sense. Often you can see the difference just by holding the bird and comparing the feathers to those beside them, as the male feathers will at first be isolated as they grow in bit by bit, and you can clearly see some have different shapes to them.
He or she is a very odd looking little bird, wonder if there's some game fowl in there. More photos would help, but while overall Bay looks quite gender ambiguous, it's possible it's a pullet.
Bay also had those red shoulders as a chick; if Bay had gone totally black, then grown out those red feathers, that would be more likely a sign of gender than retaining those red ones since hatching. None of your birds look overly typical for their breed as far as I know, barring maybe the EE.
None of your males are showing clear gender-specific feathering yet, though the development is still looking male. That's a bit odd, but development patterns do vary quite widely. The shiny feathers I'm talking about can't be seen on any of your males either, not from my check anyway. Possibly your EE, if you look closely at the dark red feathers, may have some. Asides from that I wouldn't get rid of Bay yet. I don't think he or she is a 'proper' sexlink though, or at least not like any I've seen before, which is pretty normal since they can make up sexlinks from quite varied bloodlines.
Also those shiny blue/green-sheened feathers coming in on its back are more likely to be male than female, but time will tell. Right now, the feathering over Bay's head and neck are all normal for juveniles or some breeds of hens, but then again your other males aren't showing gendered feathering yet either.
Best wishes.
They can be 'all engines go' right after hatching then stall indefinitely. At this stage there is nothing 100% to say any of them are male though I am betting the EE gets male feathering in first, if he doesn't already have it, I think I see some around the neck but can't zoom in. Generally their earlier development should be reliable but if we're thinking Bay is possibly the only pullet, then why not the others, since their development is about the same, allowing for breed differences? They're a weird bunch, I'd probably hang onto them a bit longer to be sure if I were you.
